Truthful Tuesday: The one with the mold

 

New England is great because we get all the seasons and for much of the region, we have easy access to oceans and beaches. But because of all that, we also have a lot of humidity. And with humidity, comes mold. For the most part, my tack doesn't really get moldy since I use it regularly. But this year, I have a few saddles that aren't getting use. They hang out in my tack room with their covers on, so while I was aware that was some mold on the saddles (I could see it on the bottoms) I didn't realize how icky they really were. Until yesterday. 

I had decided over the weekend that I would clean and condition all my saddles on Monday. That meant I had to take the covers off and face the horror of those unused saddles. I didn't think to snap before pics, but trust me when I say they were DISGUSTING. Even the covers were moldy and had to be washed. But the fact that my tack was moldy is not my confession (though perhaps it ought to be). 

My confession is that I'm kind of an idiot and only realized after cleaning two of them that I should be wearing a mask while I do that. I'm pretty allergic to mold (and hay but who's keeping track...) so I should have thought of that before I even started. But I didn't. Anyway, P had been out in the barn with me for the first two, but she was bored and wanted to go back in the house, so I took a break then and brought her in. I did put a mask on for the last moldy saddle, but here is where you can feel free to laugh at my idiocy. Once the mold was off the last unused saddle, I removed the mask since the toxin was eliminated. But you know what I forgot? I hadn't yet put the covers in the washer. When I did that, a big cloud of mold dust puffed out the door, right in my (now maskless) face. Like I didn't know that would happen? 

Fortunately, the universe really wants to help me learn from these mistakes so I had a lovely ocular migraine this morning as a reminder to keep my face out of things I'm allergic to. I hear you universe. Hopefully lesson learned... (No promises though.)

On the bright side, all five saddles are now squeaky clean and nicely conditioned. So at least there's that!